From: Judy Miriga

Good People of the World,

Democratic Republic of Congo is bordered by Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Congo have been embroiled in multiple conflicts for at least a decade.

The reason for conflict is as a result of Enormous Mineral Wealth East DR Congo’s has and because of greediness of neighboring political excessive interests, siphoning of Armed Militia-men weakened the fundamental fabric of Congo Nation. If it were not for the additional vested Special Business Interest financing of the excessive corruption with impunity, these multiple conflicts would not have gone this far. The Government also share in the blame for failing to stand firm against making deals with organized armed Militia-men from the neighboring Nation, thus he failed to provide security and protect its people from invasion and attack, but consulted with the very wrong people who have vested interest to plunder Congo, the very people who are the reason cause of problem in Congo.

Instead of putting the Country in a risky compromising situation, this is the time President Kabila must put his wisdom, responsibility and integrity to work and safeguard public dignity and honor peoples’ interest, human rights and deliver service directly to offer service to the people of Congo first.

The greedy and mean Special Business Interest engaged in inflicting pain and suffering to the people of Congo, must be put on notice; thereby financing and forming various armed groups with intention to plunder, steal and rape Congo’s wealth and values is unacceptable.

Kabila must concentrate to provide good organization on a fair Democratic process with good principles for Legal Justice and stop networks of these terrorists, proliferation of arms including pirating and theft of its Country’s mineral resources…..consequently, the network of Special Business Interest too will be forced to follow Law and Order where the all must obey the rules regardless. They are the reason for poverty in Africa and now the engineered Land Grabbing of Africa for illegal and unconstitutional occupation. It is because, the Special Business Interest found free loading of opportunity, the reason they continually engineer conspiracy for conflicts and civil war with corrupt politicians, where they spend huge sums of money to massacre and extinguish Africans from the face of earth. We must stop this Wild Jungle Rule. We can do better than that.

These money that are wasted to steal from Africa through pain and sufferings, could be put to better use where all people engage in peaceful and Mutual “Give and Take” fair business game and everyone end up happy and satisfied……with no war…….

Kabila with the help of UN and the International community, must now engage to transfer better living conditions to the local population of Congo. M23 have no business to demand any type of negotiations with Congo. They must be rounded up and taken to face charges at the ICC Hague to join with Bosco Ntaganda In Custody At International Criminal Court In The Hague, for charges of invasion, human rights abuses against civilians and plunder of natural resources.

Good People, let us join hands and for once give a lasting peace to the DR Congo from wanton multiple conflicts that have had catastrophic disaster with pain and sufferings to no end……….Let us all lookforward to sharing of Peace and Unity in pursuit for happiness where together, we all shall enjoy benefit of peace along with the Congo people……….and may God help us all in this endeavor.

Yes, M23 is not a big problem on the face of UN and the International Community. In advance, I want to thank Ban-ki-moon for the best foot he put forward this time round. I was mad at him like hell, but now, I am proud of him. I am at peace within me and believe that he will conclude this matter of M23 without much ado……and as per the power bestowed to him by the United Nations Commission.

I take this opportunity to congratulate him for the work well done……..I take liberty to share a toast for good tiding…..and wish him well……….

Cheers !!!!

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

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Rebels in Congo declare ceasefire

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Rebels entrenched in the hills above one of eastern Congo’s largest cities declared a unilateral ceasefire on Friday and began retreating from the frontline, the first indication that a joint United Nations and Congolese offensive might be gaining the upper hand in the conflict.

The M23 rebels said that they have begun pulling back from Kanyaruchinya village, which has been in the crosshairs of the fighting that erupted on Aug. 21. On Twitter, they said they were doing so in order to allow U.N. inspectors a chance to investigate the shelling of nearby towns.

Reached by telephone, M23 president Bertrand Bisimwa said that beyond the investigation, his group was declaring the ceasefire in order “to give peace a chance.”

“We have decided to decree a unilateral ceasefire and we have started pulling our forces out of Kanyaruchinya in order to allow the investigation into the shelling,” he told The Associated Press. “This announcement, which was made unilaterally, is meant to allow the Congolese to return to the negotiating table.”

The declaration marks a significant change in tone for the M23 rebels. As recently as Wednesday, Bisimwa maintained that the rebels had the advantage and that U.N. and Congolese troops had been forced to retreat.

Congolese military spokesman Col. Olivier Hamuli said late Friday that in addition to Kanyaruchinya, Congolese and U.N. forces had succeeded in routing the M23 from Kibati, a village they had controlled, and combat was ongoing in Kibumba, around 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Goma.

“They announced (their ceasefire) when they realized that they were losing on the ground. I am just back from the frontline and they have suffered heavy losses. They have abandoned an arms depot with heavy weapons,” Hamuli said. “They even abandoned a military vehicle which proves that they are quitting because if they are just retreating they should take their armaments with them.”

Created in 2012, the M23 rebels succeeded in seizing and briefly holding Goma last year. That prompted the United Nations to create a special intervention brigade, which, alongside Congolese troops, has been pounding rebel positions for the past week, using combat helicopters, artillery and armored personnel carriers. The rebels’ retreat suggests the weeklong offensive against the rebels might have turned a corner.

In Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, government spokesman Lambert Mende said the call for a ceasefire does not go far enough.

“It’s our opinion that the only interesting proposition would be to see M23 demobilized, and to see them dissolve and cease all military action. Any other proposal is unacceptable,” said Mende, Congo’s minister of information.

The fighting, which began on Wednesday last week, has so far claimed the lives of one U.N. peacekeeper as well as at least 10 Congolese soldiers and 14 civilians who died from the shelling on either side of the Congo-Rwanda border.

On Thursday, Rwandan officials confirmed the death of a woman in the Rwandan border district of Rubavu who died after a rocket coming from the Congolese side exploded in Rwandan territory.

Angry Rwandan officials claim the rocket was fired on purpose by Congolese troops in order to drag Rwanda into the conflict — a claim that was seen as deeply cynical by some, given the mounting evidence that the M23 rebels are in fact a Rwandan proxy force.

A recent United Nations Group of Experts report describes how Rwandan soldiers sneak across the forested border in groups of up to 30 men to join the ranks of the M23, a group which is almost entire Tutsi, the ethnic group of Rwanda’s ruling class. Previous U.N. reports have described the logistical support Rwanda is providing, including night vision goggles.

Late Thursday, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Twitter that Rwandan troops could enter Congo. She said in a Tweet that her country is not currently in Congo, and added the word “yet” in parenthesis. Earlier in the day she had said Rwanda had remained restrained “for as long as we can.”

Goma, a Congolese city of 1 million located on the Rwandan border, briefly fell to the M23 rebels last year in a humiliating blow both to the Congolese military, which barely put up a fight, and the thousands of United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the region, who stood by as the rebels entered the strategic town. They said they could not intervene because their mandate only permitted them to protect civilians.

“The perception is that they didn’t do a thing to stop them,” said Frances Charles, the Goma-based advocacy director for the international aid group World Vision. “There are literally photos where you have U.N. peacekeepers sitting in tanks while M23 walks past.”

In response, the U.N. created the new intervention brigade which is authorized to directly combat the rebels.

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Rukmini Callimachi contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Jason Straziuso also contributed to this report from Nairobi.

DR Congo: Ban deplores killing of Tanzanian peacekeeper

New York, Aug 30 :

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the killing of a Tanzanian peacekeeper and the wounding of 10 others in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Wednesday during an attack against the M23 rebel group in the vast country’s restive eastern province. “The Secretary-General deplores in the strongest terms the killing and wounding of UN peacekeepers,” Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement issued Wednesday night. “He offers his sincere condolences and sympathy to their families and to the Governments of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Republic of South Africa.”The attack occurred in the Kibati heights in North Kivu as the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) supported action by Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) to protect civilian-populated areas of Goma.The Mission has delivered mortar and artillery fire and engaged its attack helicopters, while the FARDC has used attack helicopters, battle tanks and ground forces. The operation is still ongoing.”The United Nations remains committed to taking all necessary actions in line with Security Council resolution 2098 (2013) to protect civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the statement read.Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of MONUSCO, Martin Kobler, also expressed his outrage by the killing of the peacekeeper. “He sacrificed his life to protect civilians in Goma. My thoughts go to his family and all members of his unit in this very difficult moment,” he said.Over the past year, the M23, along with other armed groups, have clashed repeatedly with the FARDC. The rebels briefly occupied Goma in November 2012. The fighting resumed in recent weeks, this time dragging in a group of Ugandan-based rebels, and displaced more than 100,000 people, exacerbating the region’s ongoing humanitarian crisis, which includes 2.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 6.4 million in need of food and emergency aid.On 28 March this year the Security Council authorized the establishment of the intervention brigade to carry out targeted offensive operations, with or without the FARDC, against armed groups that threaten peace in eastern DRC. At the same time the Security Council called on the M23 to cease immediately all forms of violence and destabilizing activities and for its members to immediately and permanently disband and lay down their arms.The strengthening of the MONUSCO mandate with the intervention brigade is designed to further support the political objectives of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the region – a peace deal signed in February in Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia. –IBNS (Posted on 30-08-2013 – See more at:

http://www.newkerala.com/news/story/60548/dr-congo-ban-deplores-killing-of-tanzanian-peacekeeper.html#sthash.WbrLPxeK.dpuf

Getting tough in Congo: can risk pay off for UN forces?
Jonny Hogg and Louis Charbonneau August 29, 2013

Tanzanian Forces of the U.N. Intervention Brigade attend a training session outside Goma in the eastern …

By Jonny Hogg and Louis Charbonneau

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – In lawless eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a new U.N. force is trying a different strategy for keeping the peace: going on the attack.

The Force Intervention Brigade has in recent days seen its first real action in an operation to keep rebels away from the city of Goma, near Congo’s border with Rwanda. On Wednesday, one Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed and three other brigade members injured.

Created by the U.N. Security Council earlier this year, the unit represents an aggressive step up for U.N. peacekeeping operations in the region, which for years have been criticised for inaction and failing to protect civilians.

In the past, in Congo and elsewhere, peacekeeping missions usually saw U.N. troops use force only in self-defence or to protect non-combatants. The new 3,000-strong brigade has a specific mandate for “targeted offensive operations” to “neutralise” and disarm rebel groups. Part of MONUSCO, the existing U.N. peacekeeping mission with 20,000 personnel spread across the vast central African state, the brigade is made up of contingents from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi.

But will the new troops help or hinder efforts to bring peace?

On the streets of Goma, a trading hub on Lake Kivu, many people are angry with the existing mission for not doing enough to protect them from either the Congolese army or insurgent and militia groups that prey on civilians, raping, looting and killing.

“If MONUSCO does nothing, we’ll take up our machetes and chase them out. If they don’t tackle the rebels, we’ll do something to them,” motorcycle taxi driver Bienvenu Musoka told Reuters as a crowd jostled and heckled outside a meeting calling for protests against the new brigade.

As white armoured vehicles lumbered through Goma’s dilapidated streets on a recent U.N. patrol, a voice crackled over the radio warning troops to “watch out for stone-throwing, guys.” The blue-helmeted soldiers were greeted by hostile stares and gestures from local inhabitants.

The disillusion is not hard to fathom. Rights groups point to a number of massacres and abuses of civilians in eastern Congo over the last decade even though armed U.N. peacekeepers were in nearby bases. When well-armed fighters from a rebel group known as M23 swept into Goma in November after routing Congolese government forces, Indian and South African U.N. troops did not stop them. M23 eventually withdrew under international pressure, but the debacle fueled resentment among residents.

Locals want the new force to be much tougher.

“We want MONUSCO and the brigade to react. Ban Ki-moon (the U.N. Secretary-General) consoles us, tells us to wait whilst they formulate a strategy. That’s because it’s not his wife being raped, not his children who are dying,” said Willy Mulumba, a small trader in one of Goma’s chaotic markets.

That history means the new U.N. brigade starts operations facing a risky dilemma.

“If it fails (to bring peace) there will be a backlash, and that’s going to be bad for Congo, and will discredit the U.N.,” said Thierry Vircoulon, project director for International Crisis Group in Central Africa.

But if it imposes peace by force it risks stoking underlying tensions.

“With this offensive mandate MONUSCO is, even more than it was before, a party to the conflict,” Said Tariq Riebl, Oxfam’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Goma.

CRUCIBLE OF CONFLICT

Eastern Congo has long been one of Africa’s bloodiest battle fields. The roots of its current conflict lie in the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, where Hutu soldiers and militia killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame toppled the Hutu government and sent those responsible for the genocide fleeing into eastern Congo along with two million Hutu refugees. Kagame became Rwanda’s president and pursued the “genocidaires”, many of whom remain in Congo and fight as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Two civil wars have ensued, both launched from the east with Rwandan involvement. The second, from 1998 to 2003, spawned a plethora of armed groups pitted against a corrupt Congolese army. Humanitarian agencies estimate more than five million people have died in the violence since 1998, despite the presence for most of that time of a U.N. peacekeeping force.

From a small group of military observers deployed in 1999, the U.N. presence morphed into a full-fledged peacekeeping mission. In the early days, its mandates – the rules under which its peacekeepers are deployed – were more defensive than offensive. Blue-helmets had to protect U.N. and other personnel and civilians “under imminent threat of physical violence.”

The mission has sometimes hurt itself. In the past, U.N. troops have been accused of sexual misconduct and smuggling arms and gold. The U.N. says these cases have been investigated and dealt with. As well, soldiers from Congo’s army, which the U.N. is backing, have been accused of raping and killing civilians. The U.N. has threatened to halt cooperation with some Congolese units because of this.

On occasion, the U.N. has taken a more offensive approach to the rebels. After heavy fighting in 2003 between rival ethnic militias in northeast Ituri district, the Security Council authorised France to deploy a mostly French 1,400-strong combat force to protect residents there. Two years later, also in Ituri, Pakistani peacekeepers killed 50 militiamen days after nine Bangladeshi blue-helmets were killed in an ambush.

In 2006, Indian U.N. troops used helicopter gunships, heavy weapons and armoured vehicles to kill dozens of advancing Tutsi rebels near Sake, north of Goma. A Congo army officer put the rebel deaths in that clash at 150.

In general, though, in Congo and elsewhere, the U.N. has been wary of “peace enforcement” ever since its involvement in Somalia in the 1990s. Appetite for proactive intervention withered after the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident when militia fighters shot down U.S. helicopters in Mogadishu, and killed 18 U.S. soldiers in the ensuing battle.

“A STRONG REQUEST FROM THE AFRICANS”

One reason for the new approach in Congo is the rise of the M23 rebel group, which emerged last year when former rebel fighters, who had been integrated into the Congolese army, mutinied. The group takes its name from a March 23, 2009 peace deal that ended a previous revolt.

M23 accuse Congo’s government and army of failing to honour that peace pact, and of tolerating and collaborating with the Hutu FDLR fighters who they view as mortal enemies.

U.N. experts have reported that the group is backed and supplied by Rwanda. M23 and the Rwandan government fiercely reject those accusations.

The surprise capture of Goma by M23 last year left the U.N. fending off charges that its troops stood idly by. The incident increased diplomatic pressure from a number of African capitals, in particular Kinshasa, to get a new, tougher brigade approved by the U.N. Security Council.

“It was really a strong request from the Africans,” a senior Western diplomat said.

But some Western powers in the Security Council feared the deployment might worsen rather than solve the violence.

“France, U.S. and UK were very sceptical,” the diplomat said. “We had the impression that it would add violence to violence, that it was not 3,000 soldiers who were going to change the balance and solve the issues.”

A senior U.N. official in New York confirmed the internal discussion. “The Intervention Brigade is very controversial and not everyone is sold on it,” the official said.

Even as it beefed up its military power, the U.N. threw its weight behind peace talks; A U.N.-mediated peace deal was signed in February by 11 regional states, including Congo and Rwanda. But separate direct talks between M23 and Congo’s government in the Ugandan capital Kampala have made little progress.

Some say negotiations may have been undermined by the new U.N. military force. “The U.N. is stuck between its aggressive mandate and peace talks, leading to a somewhat schizophrenic policy,” Congo expert Jason Stearns wrote this month on his Congo Siasa blog.

Axel Queval, MONUSCO’s acting head in North Kivu province, where Goma is located, sees the brigade working in tandem with political negotiations.

“The door for negotiations is always open, but if the negotiations can’t work, then of course the brigade is here to put pressure on. It’s a little bit of the carrot and the stick,” Queval said.

Congolese authorities want the brigade to act – and fast. “My advice to the United Nations would be to move more quickly. The resolution which was voted mustn’t just remain a bit of paper,” said Julien Paluku, governor of North Kivu. “I think we must finish with M23, with FDLR militarily … This is the first time the U.N. has created an offensive brigade for peacekeeping. If it fails, it’s going to be bad for them.”

The U.N. resolution behind the brigade foresees three infantry battalions, one artillery group and one special force and reconnaissance company under the direct command of the MONUSCO force commander.

But U.N. officials admit the brigade’s deployment is still only two thirds complete. The Malawians have not yet arrived and the South African and Tanzanian contingents do not have all their equipment yet.

Wednesday’s deadly skirmish has raised questions about whether the U.N. unit has the force, firepower and equipment to carry out its mandate. This is especially sensitive in South Africa, which in March saw 15 of its soldiers killed in Central African Republic during a rebel takeover there.

“The force is too small, it’s not mobile enough,” South African defence and military analyst Helmoed Romer Heitman told Reuters of the new brigade. South Africa’s National Defence Union (SANDU), which represents military personnel, issued a statement after this week’s fighting expressing concern that South African troops are backed not by their own air force’s Rooivalk (Red Kestrel) attack helicopters but by the U.N.’s Ukrainian-piloted Mi-24 gunships. The Rooivalks are due to arrive in Congo in October.

ATROCITIES AND MASSACRES

The newly appointed commander for MONUSCO is Brazilian Lieutenant General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, whose previous U.N. experience involved fighting criminal gangs in the slums of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. He recognises that his troops face a credibility test in Congo.

“We are supposed to have courage and take action, but sometimes the inaction is absolute,” he told international NGOs at a meeting in July, according to minutes taken by one group present. “We must be accountable (for) it.”

Dos Santos Cruz was unavailable for an interview.

Oxfam’s Riebl said that even as the new brigade is being deployed, militias and warlords have been attacking local communities without the U.N. intervening. The town of Pinga, in the mineral-rich highlands of North Kivu, has changed hands between rival militias at least eight times since last year, he said. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders was forced to suspend its acitivies in Pinga this month because of violence and after direct threats to staff.

“We’ve seen atrocities and massacres committed, people being decapitated … we’re definitely talking about hundreds in the last few months. All of this has happened in a town where there is a U.N. base, which has been there permanently,” Riebl said.

REBEL DEFIANCE

As the brigade steps up its operations, they will face a battle-hardened enemy.

On the road north from Goma, the final Congolese army checkpoints are followed by kilometres of deserted villages before a rebel roadblock marks the edge of M23’s zone of control.

M23 leaders believe they hold the upper hand in the rugged hilly terrain they know so well. At M23’s headquarters along the Congo-Uganda border, M23 President Bertrand Bisimwa told Reuters a U.N. offensive would be a “mistake”. Wearing a crisp khaki suit and cowboy hat, and surrounded by fighters in camouflage and gumboots, Bisimwa said his forces would fight back.

Rwanda has also pushed back against the U.N. brigade, alleging U.N. commanders discussed “collaboration” with Hutu FDLR rebels. The U.N. has asked Rwanda for proof of this claim, which Kigali has not provided.

The M23 rebels say their soldiers are more than a match for the untested U.N. Intervention Brigade. “The Tanzanians are the toughest. But kill five South Africans and they’ll pack up and go home,” one rebel leader said derisively.

As a recent convoy rumbled past tumbledown shacks in Goma, a South African soldier in full battle gear summed up the feeling inside the brigade: “If (the Congolese) can find a political solution, that’ll be good for us, and good for them. If not, we’ll do what we’ve prepared to do.”